Vanishing Girls(34)

“Ari!” I call out. When she looks up, I lift the plastic bag. “Thanks.”

“No problem.” She smiles, just a little, even though she still looks sad. “I always liked it when you called me Ari.”

Then she’s gone.





www.theShorelineBlotter.com_july23





by Margie Nichols


Have the police finally caught a break in the Madeline Snow case?

Sources close to the investigation tell this reporter that the police have named Nicholas Sanderson, 43, an accountant with a home in the upscale beachfront community of Heron Bay, a “person of interest.”

What does this mean, exactly? According to Frank Hernandez, the commanding officer in charge of the search for Madeline Snow, “We’re investigating a possible connection between Sanderson and the Snow family. That’s all. No further comment.”

No further comment? Really? After a little digging, here’s what I’ve learned: Nicholas Sanderson and his wife vacation a good forty-five miles from the Snow residence. They attend different churches, and at no time have Mr. or Mrs. Snow used Sanderson for his accounting services. Nicholas Sanderson has no children, and no obvious connection to Springfield, where the Snows live.

So what’s the connection? Post your thoughts/comments below.

Doesn’t mean anything. Sanderson could’ve met Madeline anywhere—hanging out at the beach, shopping at Walmart, whatever. Maybe he reached out to her online. Madeline’s sister has a car, doesn’t she?

posted by: bettyb00p at 10:37 a.m.

Why are you assuming there is a connection? Cops are just grabbing at straws, IMHO.

posted by: carolinekinney at 11:15 a.m.

That guy is the worst!!! Tried to charge me 3K just to do my taxes. What a scam artist.

posted by: alanovid at 2:36 p.m.

bettyb00p is right. Everything happens online nowadays. Was Madeline on Facebook?

posted by: runner88 at 3:45 p.m.





No. I checked.


posted by: carolinekinney at 3:57 p.m.

Still. These sickos always find a way.

posted by: bettyb00p at 4:02 p.m.





See additional 107 comments





JULY 23


Dara


8:30 p.m.

Until I turned fourteen, my parents took Nick and me to Sergei’s every other week. Sergei’s is wedged between a dentist’s office and a children’s shoe store that I have never known a single person to shop at. There is no actual Sergei; the owner’s name is Steve, and the closest he ever got to Italy was the time he lived for two years in an Italian neighborhood in Queens, New York. The garlic is from a jar and the Parmesan cheese is the crumbly kind that comes in an airtight container, the kind you can keep in a pantry for years or through nuclear catastrophes. The tablecloths are paper, and each place setting comes with a different-colored crayon.

But the meatballs are fluffy and as big as softballs, and the pizza comes in thick slices, layered with melted cheese, and the baked ziti is always bubbly brown and crusty at the corners, just how I like it. Besides, Sergei’s is ours. Even after Mom and Dad started making excuses to avoid each other, claiming late hours at work or developing colds or other obligations, Nick and I used to go together. For $12.95 we could get two Cokes and a large pizza and hit up the salad bar, too.

Il Sodi, the restaurant Cheryl has selected, has crisp white linen tablecloths and fresh flowers arranged in the center of every table. The floors are polished wood and so slick even standing up to go to the bathroom makes me nervous. Waiters swan between tables, cranking out fresh pepper and grating fine flakes of cheese onto pasta portions so small they look accidental. Everyone has the pushed and prodded and tugged look that rich people have, like they’re just giant pieces of taffy, ready to be molded. Cheryl lives in Egremont, just next to Main Heights, in the house she inherited after her last husband got flattened by an unexpected heart attack the day before his fiftieth birthday.

I’ve heard the story before, but for some reason she feels the need to tell it to me again, as if she’s expecting my sympathy—the phone call from the hospital, her frantic rush to his bedside, regrets about all the things she wishes she got the chance to say—while Dad sits and fiddles with a sweating glass of whiskey on the rocks. I’m not sure when he started drinking. He never used to have more than a beer or two at barbecues; he always used to say alcohol was how boring people had fun.

“And of course it was just devastating for Avery and Josh.” Josh is Cheryl’s eighteen-year-old son. He goes to Duke, a fact she has found ingenious ways to work into almost any conversation. I met him once, at a meet-and-greet dinner for the new “family” in March, and I swear he spent the whole dinner staring at my tits. Avery is fifteen, about as much fun as a Band-Aid, and just as clingy. “To be honest, even though we lost Robert five years ago, I don’t think we’ll ever be done grieving. You have to give yourself time.” I shoot my dad a look—does she think this is good dinner-party conversation?—but he’s studiously avoiding my eyes and instead using his phone under the table. Despite the fact that this dinner was his idea—he wanted some “quality time” with me, to “check in,” which I guess is why he didn’t invite Nick—he’s hardly said a word to me since I sat down.